The President’s Youth Award: Republic of Guyana (PYARG) says it has a number of projects planned for the year that will involve more than 3000 participants.
In a press release, PYARG Executive Officer Alfred King said more resources will be available to the programme and “it will be working towards greater collaboration with its user units, such as institutions, clubs, ministries and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). King said many of these units already have the necessary resources for development and will complement the efforts of the awardees who will also be credited by the PYARG.
The PYARG said HIV/AIDS is a critical part of the programme and, since its introduction more than two years ago, more than 1000 youth undertook the role of peer educators in several communities. Also, funding from the government and World Bank assisted with promoting prevention and control initiatives.
The PYARG said 15 representatives will be attending this year’s Caribbean Award Scheme Council in Trinidad and Tobago. This is an international award programme that has been ongoing for more than eight years that exposes youth from various countries to the PYARG from a global perspective. King said that the exposure is boosting the capacity of the programme locally since it provides stakeholders with an opportunity to draw comparisons between Guyana and other countries as regards the training component. He said this project caters for programme leaders who will be given an opportunity to develop mass casualty skills and successfully manage various expeditions.
At least two gold award recipients will attend the Gold Encounter, an award programme in Australia that will train various country representatives to be successful advocates in community service activities. King said this event will develop the knowledge of facilitators in Guyana by allowing them to develop ideas and implement methods to improve the quality of programmes offered.
King said the PYARG programme makes a meaningful contribution to youth development and will attract more than 50 volunteers to it this year. The volunteers will be in charge of three main aspects at the PYARG; skills training, physical recreation, community service and expeditions. The programme has experienced significant participant growth with an intake rate of 6,000. Since it was founded in 1998 more than 3000 youths have graduated. Last year about 50% of the youths participated in the bronze, silver and gold programmes. Many of them have received higher training. Guyana is rated number five internationally in conversion rate as many of the youths who finished the beginners programmes advanced to higher levels of training.